Washington Turns Up the Heat

Global warming notwithstanding, it was only a few years ago that growers in eastern Washington’s high desert must have thought the next ice age was starting. The 2010 growing season was a consistently cool one that produced wines in a distinctly European style. Then came 2011, which was downright glacial by eastern Washington standards, the coldest in decades.

Two thousand twelve brought a return to normal—not too hot, not too cold . . .  just right. This “perfectly average vintage,” as a number of growers described it, was also Washington’s easiest in many years, both in the vineyards and in the wineries. As my extensive further tastings of 2012s in recent months make clear, this is a consistently excellent and often spectacular vintage for Washington, having produced a greater number of outstanding, silky wines with a full range of aromatic qualities and suave tannins than any past year.

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Washington State AVA Map courtesy of Washington State Wine. Click for high resolution version

The Heat Returns

The mini ice age eventually melted away and would soon be just a memory. Heat returned in 2013, a year that actually began with a cool, late spring and tardy flowering, but then turned blistering in late July and August. In the end, the vintage was saved by a sustained cool-down in September and early October that allowed growers to let their fruit hang for full phenolic ripeness at moderate levels of potential alcohol—and often with healthy acidity.

Two thousand fourteen was then a consistently hot growing season virtually wall to wall, the warmest to date for most growing areas in eastern Washington. And somehow, the thermostat was turned up yet another notch in 2015. Having spent time in eastern Washington in both mid-June and late July this year, I can assure you that conditions were sauna-like.

For those of you keeping score at home, here’s a quick update of a vintage recap I offered on this website a year ago:

2010:  Cool

2011:  Very cool (downright cold by Washington standards)

2012:  Perfectly average, classic